TAURO: Retrofit vents at Oyster Creek

Picture yourself as a control room operator at a nuclear plant like Oyster Creek in Lacey during a severe accident and being faced with a decision as difficult as that in "Sophie's Choice," when the mother had to choose which of her two children to save from the concentration camps.

High-pressure steam is rising in the containment surrounding the nuclear reactor, and if it is not released, the plant could blow up. But you know that opening vents to release the pressure will spew a radioactive cloud into the surrounding neighborhood, exposing your family and friends to dangerous doses of radiation, making your hometown uninhabitable for at least a lifetime.

That is the double-edged choice plant operators faced at the Fukushima Daiichi plant two years ago on March 11. Investigators now know that the vents, which did not have an automatic release, were not activated manually in enough time to prevent catastrophe. Three reactors exploded, propelling radioactive shards up to 50 miles away, contaminating the food supply, dosing the population, driving up rates for cancer and genetic abnormalities for those affected, and making neighborhoods radioactive wastelands for thousands of years.

In the United States, the five Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioners, all presidential appointees, will soon decide whether a similar catastrophe could be avoided by requiring a retrofit of vents with radiation filters at the nation's 31 General Electric Mark I and II boiling water reactors, including Oyster Creek, that have the same design as Fukushima.

A special task force of NRC inspectors and engineers has strongly recommended that the filters be installed after conducting in-depth inspections and tours of nuclear plants in Europe. All of the plants in France, Germany, Italy, Romania and England have radiation filters, and in a lesson painfully learned, the Japanese government is now requiring filters to be retrofitted at their nuclear facilities.

If the NRC commissioners do not support recommendations from the agency's own task force, it would strike quite a blow within the agency. The commission has come under constant public criticism for being more attuned to industry demands and profits than to public safety.

The nuclear industry is opposing the proposed regulation, saying it is unnecessary and expensive. Reported estimates place the price tag for filtered vents at $16 million for each plant.

Environmental groups and citizens' networks across the country are pushing for the upgrades, as well as the state of New York. The New Jersey Environmental Federation, which has 150,000 individuals and 75 grass-roots organizations in its membership, GRAMMES (Grandmothers, Mothers, and More for Energy Safety) and the Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear have asked the Christie administration to support the NRC's staff recommendations.

An inherent design flaw in General Electric's boiling water reactors emerged shortly after Oyster Creek went online in 1969. At the time, GE engineers discovered that the containment vessel as designed was too small to contain a buildup of steam pressure if there was a severe accident. Three of the original design engineers quit in protest, stating that the plants as designed were not safe enough to operate. As a quick fix, the NRC requested that the plant owners install vents to function in a similar way as a pressure cooker to release steam.

Since the NRC did not execute a regulatory order, and instead simply requested the upgrade, the vents did not go through the rigorous and exhaustive inspections and review process that a design change order requires. The first time they were put to a test was at Fukushima, and the failure rate was 100 percent.

It is now time for the NRC to do what it should have done some 40 years ago. The vents must open automatically if there is a severe accident, and they must have filters to shield the public from an intense blast of radiation. The 3.5 million citizens living within 50 miles of Oyster Creek deserve nothing less, as do the millions of others residing in proximity of old reactors nationwide.

Surely, United States should have as stringent radiation protection as required by the Romanian government.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

TAURO: Retrofit vents at Oyster Creek

Radiation filters vital at Lacey plant in case of accident

A link to this page will be included in your message.

Real Deals

Sales, coupons, circulars and more from your favorite Jersey Shore area retailers.